


κακὰ θηρία, γαστέρες ἀργαί

by ultimaromanorum



Category: Il pendolo di Foucault | Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco
Genre: Gen, a surprising lack of Templars, and an unfortunate preponderance of Immanuel Kant, cretins fools morons lunatics, graecum est non potest legere, gratuitous symbolic logic, plot is for bitches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-30 20:06:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1022850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultimaromanorum/pseuds/ultimaromanorum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Turns out Epimenides was a moron.</p>
            </blockquote>





	κακὰ θηρία, γαστέρες ἀργαί

“— you can’t be too careful, then,” Belbo was saying.

Diotallevi seemed puzzled. “Wait, why?”

“Epimenides the Cretan says all Cretans are liars.”

“I thought it was St. Paul.”

I squirmed up onto the stool beside them. “Epimenides,” I confirmed.

“Right,” Diotallevi was saying. There was a pause. “If he’s a liar, what he says is a lie, and the Cretans tell the truth; but he’s a Cretan, so he ought to know; in saying the Cretans are liars, Epimenides is himself a liar, and what he says is a lie. And then we can go on alternately proving that Epimenides and the Cretans are liars or not liars.”

“What about non-liars?” I asked.

Belbo interrupted me. "Don't let's get into the ideality of Cretans."

“I always thought this one was silly," I persisted. "It’s perfectly possible that the statement is true. It’s not a knights and knaves setup: there is no reason to assume Cretans lie all the time.”

Diotallevi nodded. “True, but we still can't know when they're not lying—”

“All right, Diotallevi,” said Belbo, “Let me see if I’ve got this right. Epimenides the Cretan says that all Cretans are liars, which means we can’t count on any given Cretan to be telling the truth at any given time, but Epimenides the Cretan does not say that Cretans always lie, so we can’t count on any given Cretan to be lying at any given time.”

“Then you’ve still got a paradox,” objected Diotallevi.

Belbo clapped a hand to his forehead as his eyes at last refocused. “No, we don’t. All it means is that the truth value of any given statement made by any given Cretan cannot be determined.”

"So they're much like the rest of us."

“Right, which is all very well if you believe what Epimenides said in the first place, but I happen not to,” I said. A drink had appeared in my hand, Pilade's work, I suppose.

“On what grounds?”

“He’s a cretin!”

“Moron,” muttered Diotallevi. “No, Belbo, listen, you’ve confused yourself. Under our interpretation, if Epimenides is lying, all it tells us is that Epimenides is a liar. But we can’t know whether or not he’s lying, so the point still stands.”

Belbo shook his head. “I don’t—”

“We do know he’s lying, actually. Here, look,” I said, beginning the inevitable sketch on the inevitable napkin. “Kant aside, the negation of ‘All Cretans are liars’ is not ‘No Cretans are liars’ but ‘Not all Cretans are liars.’ All this means is that Epimenides is a liar and there is at least one Cretan who tells the truth. But you don’t know which Cretan is which, so you must behave as though you’ve got one of the liars until you manage to demonstrate otherwise.”

“Suspicion is the order of the day.”

Diotallevi rubbed his eyes. "I've already booked my ferry, so this is purely academic.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this originally as part of something else and then realized it was actually Foucault's Pendulum fic. Based loosely on a conversation I had with some friends at dinner one night.


End file.
